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A Wet and Windy Hornet Stinger

Once again it’s Sunday morning and I am pulling on my running gear with the prospect of a hilly 9.5k run. The Hove Stinger is where we are headed. This fun run is only in its 2nd year, so most of us had no idea of what lay ahead…which is always a good thing. After meeting by our flag, getting our numbers from Dani and having a pre-run photo shoot we headed off for the 1m walk to the start point. Nice gentle way to warm up and by this time it was starting to drizzle with rain. Strange thing is with this running lark, is that cloudy skies and light’ish rain is really really welcome. This run would have been 10 times harder in yesterday’s sun and heat.

The first 4k of this run was purely up hill…..reasonably gentle up hill, but it was a long climb and as always, I appreciated the encouragement from other runners every time I wanted stop and walk. The route took you out from Waterhall and over towards Saddlescombe where there was a water station, before another sharp climb up before you headed back south. It was a great route with fantastic marshalling. One girl in particular at the 2k/8k(ish) mark was brilliant. If they gave Oscars for marshalling, she would definitely be up for one.

The scenery on this run was fantastic and that was on a windy and very wet morning – it would have been stunning on a clear day.
There were definitely fewer runners than at the Tilgate 5m last Sunday and this seemed to give a more relaxed and chilled out vibe. As always, it was great to be cheered back across the finish line by the HJ’s and how delicious was that wedge of orange they were handing out with the water?!!
It was then back to the club house for hot drinks and a free raffle – which saw Mandy winning that last bottle of Prosecco!!

Rather like the Roundhill Romp, I enjoyed this run a lot more than I had anticipated and I would encourage anyone who hasn’t done this one to definitely give it a go next year!!

See the video here (added by Dave):http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mr7D6N3_HKQ